Written Communication Apr 1992

Teaching Writers to Anticipate Readers' Needs

KAREN A. SCHRIVER

Abstract

This study evaluated a method for teaching writers to anticipate readers' comprehension needs. The method, called reader-protocol teaching, involves asking writers to predict readers' problems with a text and then providing them with detailed readers' responses (in the form of think-aloud protocol transcripts) to illustrate how readers construct an understanding of the text. Writers in five experimental classes critiqued a set of ten poorly written instructional texts and then analyzed the protocol transcripts of readers struggling to comprehend these texts. Writers in five control classes were taught to anticipate the reader's needs through a variety of audience-analysis heuristics and collaborative peer-response methods. Pretests and posttests were used to assess improvements in experimental and control writers' ability to anticipate and diagnose readers' comprehension problems. Pretest and posttest materials were expository science texts. Writers taught with the reader-protocol teaching method improved significantly more than did writers in control classes in the number of readers' problems they accurately predicted. In addition, in contrast to writers in control classes, writers taught with the reader-protocol method significantly increased in their ability to (a) diagnose readers' problems caused by textual omissions, (b) characterize problems from the reader's perspective, and (c) attend to global-text problems. Moreover, writers' knowledge of audience acquired in one domain (instructional text) transferred to another (expository science text).

Journal
Written Communication
Published
1992-04-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088392009002001
Open Access
Closed
Topics
qualitative research

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (6)

  1. Wiatrak-Uhlenkott et al. (2013)
    Book Reviews: Rhetorical Strategies and Genre Conventions in Literary Studies: …
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  2. Friess (2010)
    Designing From Data: Rhetorical Appeals in Support of Design Decisions
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  3. Jong et al. (2006)
    Dynamics of Iterative Reader Feedback
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication
  4. Wolfe (2002)
    Marginal Pedagogy
    Written Communication
  5. Benson (1997)
    Problems in Picturing Text: A Study of Visua/Verbal Problem Solving
    Technical Communication Quarterly
Show all 6 →
  1. ROZUMALSKI et al. (1995)
    Effects of Case and Traditional Writing Assignments on Writing Products and Processes
    Journal of Business and Technical Communication

Cites in this index (15)

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    Research in the Teaching of English
  2. Hull et al. (1990)
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  3. SPIVEY (1990)
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    Written Communication
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    The Effects of Audience Specification on Undergraduates’ Attitudes, Strategies,…
    Research in the Teaching of English
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    College Composition and Communication
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    Written Communication
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    Written Communication
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    Written Communication
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CrossRef global citation count: 50 View in citation network →

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